Ever wondered what happens to your Facebook profile when you die?’

Don’t worry, I’m in good health, my morbid fascination is prompted by Facebook’s, soon to be released ‘TimeLine’ feature, currently in Beta.

TimeLine produces a sort of scrapbook of everything that has happened to you since you joined Facebook, at the press of a button.

To see a chronology of your life, automatically generated, is a spooky reminder of just how much data is kept about our online activity and is more than a bit creepy.

Prior to the invention of social media, you needed to write an actual book to leave a lasting mark on the records of humanity. But now we all leave digital footprints online that may last longer than those left by the dinosaurs in the prehistoric mud.

It’s not just active social media users either. I’d bet that everyone alive today, with or without their knowledge, appears somewhere or other in a YouTube clip or uploaded photograph.

And every columnist or a blogger who pens an opinion, however misguided, is now digitally entombed with their words. In fact, if you are reading this online and its 2050, I’ve just proved my point from the grave.